Bernard Montgomery

Bernard Montgomery (17 November 1887-24 March 1976) was a Field Marshal of the British Army during World War II. He commanded the British Eighth Army during the Western Desert Campaign in North Africa from 1942 to 1943, and he was also the supreme commander of all Allied forces in Europe from June to August 1944 and commander of the 21st Army Group until the war's end in 1945.

Biography
Bernard Montgomery was born in Kennington, Surrey, England in 1887, but he was raised in Tasmania, Australia until 1901. He attended St. Paul's School in London and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1908, and served in India before seeing action in Belgium and France during World War I. He became a staff officer in the 1920s, and trained soldiers until he was posted to India and Palestine in the 1930s. He commanded the II, V, and XII Corps in England at various points from 1939 to 1941, but he rose to prominence when in August 1942, at Alan Brooke's behest, he succeeded Claude Auchinleck as commander of the British Eighth Army in the North African campaigns. Through his predecessor had already halted the Gemran advance, his success at the Second Battle of El Alamein was a much-needed boost for British morale and transformed him into a popular hero. Following this, Montgomery was involved in Allied planning for the attack on Sicily in June 1943, although subsequently the Italian campaign was subject to the control of the US military leadership, with whom he generally had an uneasy relationship. In 1944, he commanded the British armies in Normandy with mixed success, and his "Operation Goodwood" involving the use of British troops near Caen was widely criticized.

Against Dwight D. Eisenhower's insistence on a gradual advance via a broad front in France, he lobbied unsuccessfully for a concentrated, narrow push towards Berlin. Neglecting most advice he did manage to implement a scheme for an airborne assault on Arnhem in September 1944 to capture a bridgehead over the Rhine ahead of the Allied advance, which proved to be disastrous and resulted in heavy losss of life. He had more success commanding Allied troops against the German Ardennes offensive of December 1944. He formally received the surrender of the German forces in northern Germany on 4 May 1945. After the war, he held a number of senior posts, and was Chief of the Imperial General Staff from 1946 to 1948. As Deputy Supreme Commander of NATO from 1951 to 1958, he had an important role in the new organization's strategic planning. Despite his mixed military record, he was able to arouse intense personal loyalty from his troops, while his public image of invincibility at a time of war was, perhaps, at least as important as his achievements in themselves.